So, firstly: I’m a fan of Amy Schumer. I’ve followed all three seasons of her fantastic and feminist Comedy Central sketch show and laugh, wince, nod and balk at the inappropriate, sticky and icky situations her often clueless characters find themselves in. I think she’s talented and deserves all of the hype and accolades her bitingly funny work has yielded and was excited at the idea of a movie where she’s the centre and driving force as writer and star. That’s why the end result is so disappointing. SPOILERS HEREIN SO CONSIDERED YOURSELF WARNED. Continue reading →

Bearded, turtleneck-wearing, acoustic-guitar strumming musicians don’t normally inspire fits of rage but filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen used the curious question as a spark for Inside Llewyn Davis, their portrait of a struggling 1960s-era Greenwich Village musician — and it’s clear from the start that Llewyn Davis is no Bob Dylan.

Played by Oscar Isaac (Drive, Robin Hood), Davis is angrier than one might expect, driven by the pursuit of an authentic music career, his guitar the only constant as he traipses around a blustery New York with permanently wet shoes and no winter coat.

The 33-year-old actor was on the phone from New York when we spoke about why the movie reminds him of a folk song, how a camel and Buster Keaton inspired his performance and what it was like singing live on set.

You can easily forget that Quebec’s Sophie Nélisse is just a kid when watching her so expertly play Liesel Meminger in the WWII drama The Book Thief.

With pain, confusion and grief clouding her doll-pretty face as she’s confronted by the death of her younger brother and the departure of her Communist mother, thrust into a new family comprised of adoptive mother Rosa (Emily Watson) and father Hans (Geoffrey Rush), Liesel lives a life well beyond her, and Nélisse’s, young years, with only stolen, or borrowed, books letting her temporarily escape her harsh reality.

The sleepy but postcard-pretty town of Pincher Creek, Alberta provides the ideal backdrop for director Jeremiah S. Chechik‘s decade-in-the-making romantic comedy whose major appeal, according to star Ryan Kwanten, is that it doesn’t play like a rom-com.

We spoke to the “True Blood” star about playing the role of Leo Palamino, failed writer, slacker extraordinaire, recent divorcé and suddenly in love with Colette (Sara Canning) – whom he meets AT HER WEDDING – when the cast was in town during TIFF.

Carrie is many things: a thriller, a coming-of-age horror show, a metaphor for the potential destructiveness of powerful women, the name of our protagonist, and, according to director Kimberly Peirce, a superhero origin story.

Few probably saw that aspect in Stephen King’s 1974 novel about a teen outcast with telekinetic powers and a religious fanatic for a mom, or why Peirce, the woman behind powerful true story Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Iraq war movie Stop-Loss (2008), would necessarily be directing a horror remake, but Peirce found the answers to both in the book that started it all.

From the moment young Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) serendipitously spots the indigo locks of the mysterious older girl across the street one day, she’s hooked.

Blue is the Warmest Color treats audiences to the first, tentative blush of young love and follows a lesbian couple (Lea Seydoux is the blue-haired Emma) as they casually date, then start a life together and all the pain, joy and lust, in between.

That last part is what most people know about the film, even outside of the impressive Palme d’Or win at this year’s Cannes. And it’s specifically a 10-minute-long highly intimate, graphic and well-lit, sex scene between the two leads that has tongues wagging but ask the actresses themselves and they don’t seem to understand what all the fuss is about.